Section 032: The First Garment Production Line

In the following five days, under Ruoyan’s guidance, Zhou Min and the four female villagers had all mastered the most basic techniques of cutting and sewing. With the clothing styles fixed, Zhou Min and the four women were now able to cut and sew on their own. As for designing new clothing styles, due to the AI limitations on NPCs in the game, this task could only be handled by Ruoyan herself.

By now, Zhou Min was adept in both weaving and cutting. According to Li Zhan and Ruoyan’s plan, Zhou Min was to be trained as an all-rounder in clothing production, except for design, so that when Ruoyan was offline or away from the tribe, Zhou Min could lead the women in making clothes. This would reduce dependency on players and let NPCs carry on.

During these five days, Xiao Feng worked alone in the carpentry workshop, producing weaving looms at a rate of one per day. By the fifth day, the tribe already had ten looms, allowing ten women to weave at the same time. Once the process stabilized, they could produce ten bolts of cloth per day.

Dyeing was much faster than weaving. Now that the production of cloth had sped up, dyed cloth directly replaced the previous practice of dyeing thread. Each dye vat could hold one bolt of fabric, with a dyeing process of five hours. With five vats in the tribe, they could dye ten bolts a day (resting at night).

The dye shed was expanded by Zheng Jun and several builders, making room for ten looms, five dye vats, five spinning wheels (with one more spinning worker added), and five rows of worktables for cutting and sewing, all without overcrowding. The thatch covering the shed was thickened, making the dye shed not only block out sunlight but also keep the rain at bay.

The cotton fields grew by about a quarter of an acre each day. Although this was slow, it was already many times faster than in the beginning, when there were only a few dozen cotton plants. Once the cotton was picked, it was immediately handed to the newly appointed cotton farmer for sowing.

Clothing production was also steadily increasing. On the first day, Ruoyan led Zhou Min and the four women mainly in learning cutting and sewing techniques, so not many garments were finished—each only produced one quality piece (flawed items were discarded). On the second day, each made three quality pieces. On the third day, five each, with only one flawed item among them—a significant improvement in quality. On the fourth and fifth days, there were no flawed items, and each woman consistently made seven garments per day.

After five days of learning and practice, Zhou Min and the other women didn’t need Ruoyan’s guidance for cutting or sewing—they could handle these tasks independently. Each also took on an apprentice, passing on her skills. These apprentices served as both learners and helpers; with their assistance, clothing production rose again, reaching nearly fifty garments a day, already surpassing the production rate of cloth (one unit of cloth = 2.5 units of clothing).

The rates of weaving and spinning now exceeded that of cotton production (cotton yield: 67 per day). There was no raw cotton left in the tribe’s inventory, only processed thread and cloth. Since cotton production couldn’t be rushed, only gradually expanding the fields could increase output. Fortunately, there was a decent stockpile of thread, so cloth production remained steady at around ten bolts a day.

Of course, all these bolts of cloth didn’t last a day before being turned into garments, which were distributed to groups of delighted Yanhuang villagers. Across the entire game, in every national server, the Yanhuang Tribe had become the first to establish a complete, systematic clothing production chain—from growing raw cotton, spinning, weaving, dyeing, designing, cutting, all the way to finished products. Though still small and crude in scale, they had leapt ahead of all other players, forging an unmatched lead.

On the fifth day, as previously arranged, the siblings Windwalker and Windchime each brought a fishing boat to the Yanhuang Tribe to transport timber and exchange it for an equal amount of food. Each boat could only carry eighty units of timber due to limited cargo space. After docking, Windwalker, Windchime, Zheng Jun, and several villagers, together with crew from both tribes, moved the timber to the tribe’s center and loaded the same amount of food onto the boats.

Seeing Zheng Jun and the villagers dressed in blue cotton clothes, Windwalker and Windchime stared in shock, mouths agape, eyes wide. The villagers from their tribes were even more stunned, standing dumbfounded at the bow, forgetting to move their hands. Eventually, they came to their senses, exchanging glances—each wearing a coarse, earth-yellow hemp tunic—then looking at the Yanhuang villagers, all in comfortable, beautiful cotton clothing. Their faces were full of longing and regret, like children denied a new toy.

Of course, Zheng Jun and his group noticed the envy in their visitors’ eyes, which made them walk with even greater swagger, working energetically and boisterously—a sharp contrast to the depressed, slack demeanor of the Windwalker and Windchime villagers, as if the former were celebrating, not just working.

As they worked, Zheng Jun and the others couldn’t keep their mouths shut—

“These clothes are so comfortable—it feels amazing to wear them!”

“Right? Feels like they even relieve fatigue. I’ve been working all day and don’t feel tired at all.”

“It’s more than just relieving fatigue—they even cure illness and strengthen the body. Yesterday, before I put on these new clothes, I had an upset stomach all day. Today, as soon as I put them on, I was fine.”

…

Listening to their boasting, Li Zhan found it amusing: these villagers were quite the characters, showing off as soon as they put on new clothes. It was one thing to brag, but did they have to do it right in front of the other tribes, and so loudly at that? Sigh…

Hearing Zheng Jun and the others, the visiting villagers felt even more dejected, working listlessly as if they hadn’t eaten for three days. Zheng Jun and his group, seeing this, only grew more exuberant, like children flaunting a new toy.

“Chief Li,” Windwalker finally managed to look away from Zheng Jun and his group and asked, “where did you get these clothes?”

Before Li Zhan could reply, Windchime, standing beside her brother, spotted the large shed near the center of the Yanhuang Tribe, where many people were busy.

“Brother, look! Over there—they’re making clothes!” she exclaimed, pointing toward the dye shed.

Windwalker followed his sister’s finger and, though it was a distance, indeed saw workers spinning, weaving, and dyeing cloth.

After a quick glance, Windwalker turned back to Li Zhan and said, “Chief Li, would you mind if we toured your tribe?”